A. Tatou: Listen very carefully I will say zis only once. Les Cops r stitching u up for ze murder of my grandfather.T. Hanks: ONOZ!A. Tatou: Also, he has ‘ad you bugged. With a bug. FFS.T. Hanks: ONOZ! Luckily, I have thrown teh bug out of teh window, so Les Cops think I have escaped. Now to spend several hours wondering around a murder scene surrounded by Europe’s most expensive art works, where there appears to be no security whatsoever.

For the past week British taxpayers have been paying a High Court judge just under Â£3000 to read the Holy Blood and the Holy Grail and The Da Vinci Code. From the BBC today:

The case resumed on Tuesday after a week-long break to give the judge time to read both books involved and related materials.

I don’t know whether to pity the man or whether he is just the tool of karma which had to find a victim for all the people who have said, “You’d have to pay me to read that!” One wonders whether the judge read all the appendices to the Holy Blood or not. I expect he’ll save them for when he needs to nod off in court.

By the way, the figure of Â£3000 comes from the salary of a High Court judge given by the Department of Constitutional Affairs wef April 2005, Â£155,404, divided by 52 (actually 2988.54 but you get the idea).

A highly entertaining court case starts today as da authors of Da Holy Blood and Da Holy Grail are suing da publishers of Da N. Brown over his novel Da Vinci code. What seems to be me da main point, and always was, is that one of da books is (purporting to be) fact while da other is fiction. It’s not as though Mr Brown copied a story as such; it might have been better if he had. The success of this case would seem to imply that any novel based on recent historical research would be banned, unless of course they admit that they made it all up down da pub one afternoon. Sounds like nonsense to me. Or a big conspiracy…

Another entertaining aspect of this is that, according to da BBC, the publishers they are suing, Random House, also published Da Holy Blood and Da Holy Grail.

Chapter 1

The eminent and very French Inspector Gordon Flache eyed the eminent Harvard popularculturologist suspiciously, “Do you know what it means?”.

Chapter 2

Obertray Angdonlay, the eminent and needlessly American expert on popular culture, who had once written a book, looked grimly at the corpse on the floor. Inspector Flache had asked him, eminently, what it meant.

The eminent librarian, M.T. Merciless lay on the floor of the eminent library, the point of a spaceship through his heart. Dead. In the dust on the floor was a picture of an enormous phallus below which he had managed to write the two lines:

O, the Divine ACDC
R R R R R R R R R

“Hmm” said the eminent Mr Angdonlay, “a Drawn Nob, an apparent tribute to a heavy metal band and a bunch of R’s. What can it mean?”.

“If I may help”, said a female, and eminent sounding voice behind them, “it looks like writing. I would say Roman script.The first inscription is almost certainly in English.” Dale Arden was an eminent police linguistics expert and eminently eminent. She was 25, had six warts on her nose, an enormous chin, and a pronounced limp. “I need to talk to you” she said to Obertray. She winked and motioned her head towards the library’s eminent convenience. Inspector Flache, being French, missed this subtle sign.

Chapter 3

“You are in eminent danger”, said Dale when they were away from the eminent detective.

“You eminently are!” said a voice. It was Hans Zarkov, formerly of NASA, who appeared at the door pointing a pistol at Angdonlay. “I seek the Crock of Shite. Give it to me!”

“Look! The Goodyear Blimp!” exclaimed Arden, pointing out the frosted glass window. As Zarkov looked up, Angdonlay and Arden ran past the eminent former Royal Crockologist and made for the ladies’ where Dale knew Dr Zarkov, a British gentleman, would not follow.

Chapter 4

Angdonlay and Arden ran into the ladies, where Dale knew Dr Zarkov, a British gentleman, would not follow.

“But what does it mean?” demanded Angdonlay.

“Nothing”, said Dale, “you have to read 600 pages of the Book only to find out the Crock is a warm fluffy feeling.”

In Baigent, Leigh, and Lincoln’s Da holy blood and the holy grail, a great, or rather disproportinate fuss is made of the fact that Poussin’s painting Da Shepherds has a tomb with the Latin inscription Et in Arcadia ego (it’s not even a proper sentence, see!!) on it and that this inscription is an anagram of I tego arcana Dei: Behold! I conceal the secrets of God. Scary stuff.

What other secrets are hidden in these words, I thought to myself about 10 years ago. I then proceeded to derive English anagrams from the letters of the phrase Et in Arcadia ego. In the true spirit of Baigent et al.’s book, I lost the paper on which I recorded these arcana. While clearing some old papers this weekend, however, I found the document, which had gone brown with age, notwithstanding that it is a brown envelope. Below are the results, in which conspiracy theorists will find a large amount of wisdom about the CIA. No coincidence I would suggest.

Die in a goat race

O, I date a Grecian

Eradication age

I decorate again

I enrage CIA toad

I dare to in a cage

Iago cried at an E

A nice area to dig

I ate a rice gonad

A CIA orange diet

A CIA agent or die

CIA are eatin’ God

I create a God, Ian

See Da Shepherds site referred to above for more background or, better still, read the original and best Da holy blood and the holy grail. I believe Dan Brown’s Da Vinci code covers much of the same ground (I’m the one who hasn’t read it) but it must surely be less entertaining as Baigent et al. actually purport to be uncovering the truth.

Any further contributions are of course welcome; threats to shut down this site on the grounds that it reveals secrets that should not be revealed are not.